


Everything's Coming Up

by anotherbuskitten



Series: walls have ears [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Relationship Study, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29548638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherbuskitten/pseuds/anotherbuskitten
Summary: Lily returns to Privet Drive a more prepared woman. Well sort of. A not actively-working-for-evil woman anyway.
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley & Lily Evans Potter
Series: walls have ears [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755604
Kudos: 5





	Everything's Coming Up

**Author's Note:**

> This is...very short. It’s a character study, and not anything driving the plot forward. I like Petunia as a character so she’ll probably show up if I keep writing in this ‘verse but, like, as an occasional side-character more than anything else because I can’t really be true to her and have her hanging out with the magic people. 
> 
> Like, that would have to be a really long slow burn character study and I just do not have the energy for that.

This time, when Lily goes to Surrey, she has her hair and makeup done and picks out a nice muggle dress so that she might look like the sort of person that Petunia Dursley would know. She doesn’t bring Sirius or James, even though both of them offer.

Anything she tells Petunia about the past three years is going to be rock the boat in an already tense relationship – that's if she has the right to consider their sisterhood a relationship at all – but still Lily can’t help but feel that introducing her to her two wizard boyfriends would be the final straw.

She brings flowers and violet cremes as well as a toy truck for Dudley. It’s a personal conceit but she can’t help but buy one in red and gold.

By the time she reaches Privet Drive she regrets it. She hardly counts as a Gryffindor anymore.

She wonders what Petunia would have done with magic had she had it. Her sister had wanted to go to Hogwarts once, hadn’t she?

Lily smiles a little at the thought of them tearing through the school together, or better yet, them and James and Sirius at Amgems. Severus doesn’t feature in the daydream. He tends not to, these days.

She doesn’t have to knock this time; the door opens before she can lift her hand. Petunia must have seen her coming through the – shudder – net curtains.

Petunia ushers her in quickly enough that Lily thinks she must be a somewhat shameful secret of a sibling right now but she can change that; she can visit often enough that she isn’t out of place in her sister’s life.

“I brought you -

“Yes very nice.” Petunia says, taking the bag containing the gifts and placing it on the kitchen table. “Thank you.” Her voice is sharp but Lily thinks she means it. “Are you going to tell me what happened that had you leaving so fast?”

Lily’s eyes widen; she’d thought they’d sit down and have tea and carefully dodge the subject for at least half-an-hour before getting to the point. Petunia must have been worried.

She stumbles through the last few years of her life in a rush, trying not to dwell on anything for fear of the acid in her stomach coming out. She doesn’t skip over anything even the parts that she knows are likely to lose her a sister. Her mouth goes dry when she gets to the first time she took someone’s life, her tongue feeling like a lead weight in her mouth.

When she finally stops, her heart feels a little lighter: she’s the only one of them who hasn’t been able to confess her crimes. She isn’t marked and they had all agreed that it would be better if the authorities never found out that she had been a death eater.

She daren’t look up at Petunia.

“Hm. Your kind have terrorists do they?”

That’s – that’s _it?_ That’s all she’s going to say.

“It’s just people, Tuney, everywhere has terrorism.” Lily replies shakily.

“Well yes. But that’s in Ireland Lily, not _here._ ”

It’s true that this particular part of Surrey is not a place that courts danger; it’s sleepy and boring and horribly suburban.

But the death eaters would come here one day, wouldn’t they? Eventually they’d be winning the war so thoroughly that they could attack and random muggle street they wanted and eventually they were bound to find Lily’s sister.

Or worse, they’d come here deliberately to hurt her. No one defects from the Dark Lord’s service after all. She shivers.

“I should go. I’m putting you in danger by being here.”

“Absolutely not Lily!” Petunia snaps. “For goodness’ sake you just got here. Have you _told_ any of your terrorists where I live?”

“Of course not! Of course I haven’t Tuney but you didn’t tell me either and I managed to find you.” Why can’t Petunia take this seriously? Why did Lily let her think that magic was all pointy hats and pretty lights. “And they aren’t _my_ terrorists.”

“Not any more.” Petunia says, prickly. “I never liked that boy.”

“I wish I’d listened to you.”

This nets her a real smile. “Well of course, as you always should.”

Finally Petunia moves to put the kettle on and Lily takes advantage of her back being turned to wipe her eyes.

Petunia, it turns out, has kept most of their parents special occasion crockery and also for some reason Lily’s favourite childhood pretty pink mug.

The tea is made with bags, which aren’t uncommon in the wizarding world but still make Lily feel foreign, sitting at her sister’s table and not second-guessing every shape in the dregs.

“Are you really not going to say anything?”

“What, exactly, can I say Lily? I can’t make you any less magical, I can’t make your world any less magical and it sounds like if I let you go I’ll never see you again and you’ll die somewhere and I’ll never know.” Her voice hitches quite terribly on the word die.

Lily sips her tea, shocked.

“Of course,” Petunia continues stiffly, “You can’t come back here if you really think it’s dangerous. I won’t let any harm come to Dudley.”

Lily feels a rush of cold fear at the thought of hurting her baby nephew. “Of course not. I’d never hurt him.”

“I know that.” Petunia sniffs. “Which is how I know we’re safe here. Honestly Lily, you were always so dramatic.”

Lily sobs. “I’ve missed you Tuney.”

/

It hasn’t escaped Petunia’s notice that Lily keeps calling her Tuney as though they’re still twelve and ten. She hasn’t been called Tuney by anyone since the magic. Of course Vernon never calls her anything other than her name.

She doesn’t mind being Petunia if it means she also gets to be Mummy. But oh, she does miss being Tuney sometimes.

It could be manipulative of course, but Petunia can’t really see Lily as capable of that, murderer or no.

Murderer. That’s something she’s going to have to think about quite a lot later, once Lily’s gone home. She isn’t afraid of Lily even now, especially now; Lily’s face is red and blotchy and her hands are white knuckled on the mug. She’s wearing what is very obviously a new dress (Petunia thinks she spotted a price tag still hanging out of it earlier), and the wrong shade of lipstick and her fingernails are bitten to the quick. She isn’t _dangerous_ , and even if she was she’d still be Petunia’s little sister first.

Still. Murder.


End file.
